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Nip

I never met him but from everything I've heard and read he was an amazing person. My only interaction was years ago I sent a ball to his home in OR and it was promptly returned with his signature. I can't imagine how many amazing stories he had to tell.

This makes me unaccountably sad. Like Nip, I read the stories of him caring for his wife. Added to the story of his friendships told in the Teammates, and he seemed like the kind of man I hope my son grows up to be like. (That was a very involved sentence...)

Might be a good time to reread Halberstam's " The Teammates". Now the four are reunited. R.I.P. Bobby.

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In about 2002 or 2003 David Halberstam was in Portland (OR) for a reading and talk on The Teammates. Doerr came up from his home a few hours south. He spent hours telling amazing stories about his playing days. Then spend another hour or more signing books for everyone. He took the time to have a short conversation with everyone before signing. Truly a wonderful person.

When we'd be sitting around the fire at extended family cookouts and the talk would turn to players - let's say right fielders - the kids in my generation might say "Dwight Evans" and my dad's generation might say "Tony C" and the grandparents might counter with "Jackie Jensen". You'd get some good arguments going. But those old guys would brook no debate at second base. It was Doerr. He was the standard. Even more than Williams in left because they all respected fielding. Doerr was the one. And you used a Hershey bar for s'mores. Put that Nestle shit away.

Bobby Doerr lived quietly in Oregon for many years. There's a bookstore in the coastal town of Gold Beach that has a rare books and collectibles room, and in it were many items associated with Doerr ... and many of them signed. It was just a quiet space lacking in all pretense, and from all I've read that perfectly reflects on the way he lived his life.

My brother got to know Bobby and his family through his medical practice in Oregon. After he'd first met Bobby, he brought him a couple of baseballs to sign for my brother's sons. Bobby says "Let me hang on to these and I'll get Ted to sign em too." Knowing that story, I asked my brother some years back if we could get a Doerr ball for a SoSh auction, and my brother's response was, "He'll probably give you a bat." - which indeed he did. My brother can never say enough nice things about Bobby Doerr.

And yeah, tough. His most recent athletic feat was outliving every doc's estimates by a few.

"Later they were in Florida, when the Red Sox were still training in Winter Haven, and Williams invited Doerr to do some "real" fishing, bonefishing, near his home in Islamorada. Pesky was there, and when Williams was out of earshot, he told Doerr, "You don't want to do this. You don't know how he gets when he's bonefishing."

Doerr went, anyway. The next day he found Pesky and said, "You were right."

Pesky asked what happened.

"We're in the boat," Doerr said, "and I asked him a question about casting."

"Oh, no," John Pesky said, laughing. "You talked to him?"

"And when I did," Bobby Doerr said, "Ted jumped up in the boat and yelled at me, 'Don't you know they can hear you?"

When we'd be sitting around the fire at extended family cookouts and the talk would turn to players - let's say right fielders - the kids in my generation might say "Dwight Evans" and my dad's generation might say "Tony C" and the grandparents might counter with "Jackie Jensen". You'd get some good arguments going. But those old guys would brook no debate at second base. It was Doerr. He was the standard. Even more than Williams in left because they all respected fielding. Doerr was the one. And you used a Hershey bar for s'mores. Put that Nestle shit away.

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We finally got another outstanding second baseman in Dustin Pedroia. I bet Bobby appreciated Dustin.

I probably saw Bobby play at Fenway in 1950 (unless he was hurt, should have). Ted was by far the big star then, of course. Bobby and Dom were the next biggest. Ted hit two or three homers in a doubleheader on the day of that family trip down from New Hampshire. Didn't get a Bobby or anybody else autograph, but came away with some other memorabilia. Got those after the game and I think they were sold out of Ted, probably also Bobby buttons. Got a Dom D. and a Sammy White!

I've read nothing but what a great guy Bobby was, like everyone else is saying here.

Grace is a good word to characterize Doerr. There's really not much else needed to describe him.

I have a couple of Doerr stories. The first one, Winter Haven, early February 1992, lower fields. An early incarnation of the Red Sox Fantasy Camp. Day one, a Sunday, field work ending, everyone was headed to the locker rooms as dusk approached. Doerr, Pesky, Petrocelli and me were the last figures on the field as it got dark. We were clustered around second base.

Pesky and I had been debating methods of double play pivot technique at the 2nd base bag, whether feeding or receiving from the SS side or 2B side, what steps or moves worked best, where you wanted the ball, shifting for the throw to 1B, etc.

Doerr, returning from one of the other fields noticed the conversation and joined the debate. Petrocelli a few minutes later. In the end, the four of us were there the better part of an hour, each executing feed and pivot technique finally lighted only by the minimal and distant lights of Chain-O-Lakes. Doerr feeds Pesky, Petrocelli feeds Doerr, Pesky feeds me, round and round, over and over. All the while debating "best" pivot technique. Note: the question was never settled.

None of them wanted to leave. I'd met them for the first time only hours earlier. To this day, I teach kids the methods and techniques discussed and debated that evening.

Maybe I'll tell the other story tomorrow. I'll be thinking of Bobby. He defined grace. A good life, well lived, on his own terms.

My brother got to know Bobby and his family through his medical practice in Oregon. After he'd first met Bobby, he brought him a couple of baseballs to sign for my brother's sons. Bobby says "Let me hang on to these and I'll get Ted to sign em too." Knowing that story, I asked my brother some years back if we could get a Doerr ball for a SoSh auction, and my brother's response was, "He'll probably give you a bat." - which indeed he did. My brother can never say enough nice things about Bobby Doerr.

And yeah, tough. His most recent athletic feat was outliving every doc's estimates by a few.

Grace is a good word to characterize Doerr. There's really not much else needed to describe him.

I have a couple of Doerr stories. The first one, Winter Haven, early February 1992, lower fields. An early incarnation of the Red Sox Fantasy Camp. Day one, a Sunday, field work ending, everyone was headed to the locker rooms as dusk approached. Doerr, Pesky, Petrocelli and me were the last figures on the field as it got dark. We were clustered around second base.

Pesky and I had been debating methods of double play pivot technique at the 2nd base bag, whether feeding or receiving from the SS side or 2B side, what steps or moves worked best, where you wanted the ball, shifting for the throw to 1B, etc.

Doerr, returning from one of the other fields noticed the conversation and joined the debate. Petrocelli a few minutes later. In the end, the four of us were there the better part of an hour, each executing feed and pivot technique finally lighted only by the minimal and distant lights of Chain-O-Lakes. Doerr feeds Pesky, Petrocelli feeds Doerr, Pesky feeds me, round and round, over and over. All the while debating "best" pivot technique. Note: the question was never settled.

None of them wanted to leave. I'd met them for the first time only hours earlier. To this day, I teach kids the methods and techniques discussed and debated that evening.

Maybe I'll tell the other story tomorrow. I'll be thinking of Bobby. He defined grace. A good life, well lived, on his own terms.

In the 80’s, my father met and became close friends with Bobby. They fished together out at Bobby’s place on the Rogue River a few times and visited in Florida In the winters. In 1990, I graduated college and was road tripping around the west and they invited me to join them in Oregon for a steelhead trip. So, a friend of mine and I drove into his place which was a modest cabin on a beautiful spot on the Rogue. We arrived to him and his wife feeding a bunch of wild turkeys and deer. It was kind of surreal. Anyway, we spent the next few days fishing during the day and sitting around talking about baseball at night. He was a remarkably humble and caring gentleman. Like Williams, he was also a hell of a fisherman. As people noted, he was very devoted to his wife. I never crossed paths with Bobby again though he remained friends with my father. That weekend with him was probably the highlight of my career of being a Red Sox with the possible exception of 10-27-04.